PROSPECTS OF PRESELECTION IN TULIP BREEDING

The long juvenile phase and slow propagation of tulips form serious drawbacks in breeding.
Research at the Institute for Horticultural Plant Breeding is therefore aimed primarily at establishing criteria for preselection on forcing capacity and bulb production (weight and number). Comparison of the behaviour of bulblets of well-known cultivars with that of large bulbs of the same cultivars has yielded provisional selection criteria, now being tested in some large populations.

The evaluation of seedlings on the basis of time of emergence is not very promising with respect to selection on forcing capacity.
Time of dying-down of the leaf seems to be a better criterion.
During the testing of criteria for selection on production, the diameter of the main bulb was found to be a valuable parameter.

I International Symposium on Flowerbulbs

J.P. van Eijk

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1971.23.66